Assessing the impact of “liberalisation” on auditor behaviour : Accounting research in politically charged contexts

This paper employs a qualitative approach to assess the impact which the “liberalisation” of the Greek auditing profession in 1992 may have had on auditor behaviour. The “liberalisation” was introduced by legislation and was the result of a long and intense intra‐professional conflict between a group of indigenous auditors and international accounting firms. Overall, the paper illuminates the deeply political and self‐interested nature of the Greek auditing profession and its socially constructed and contextually dependent character. The results also indicate that following the “liberalisation”, auditors gave significantly less emphasis to functions relating to: being independent; publicly communicating audit findings; protecting the interests of external stakeholders, and presenting “true and fair” financial statements. In contrast, auditors placed significantly more emphasis on providing management advisory services to audit clients. The significant changes in auditor behaviour are linked to the economic dependence of auditors on audited companies which resulted from the audit reform. These findings appear to question the received wisdom underpinning the internationally prevalent move towards privatisation and deregulation of statutory audit services. Finally, the paper has important methodological implications as it demonstrates the limitations of quantitative techniques vis‐à‐vis qualitative approaches to accounting research in politically charged contexts.